


Countdown from Eleven

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Stranger Things Fusion, Angst, Blood, Canon Rewrite, Eventual Comfort/Fluff, Excessive use of italics, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Maddie's not having a very good time, Mental Link, Mental Torture, Telekinesis, pain in the brain, the watermelon is a metaphor, this is probably the meanest I've been to Maddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: The ground rumbled and the itch intensified. Her head started to hurt. Everything started to go a little bit hazy as the ground really started to shake. Outside, something that sounded like a bomb going off rang through the streets as all the lights went dark.Maddie’s brainburned.(Maddie is born with telekinesis. This changes everything and nothing.)
Comments: 122
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So! Stranger Things! Funny story: I haven’t actually seen it, but I wrote this anyway. On the plus side, it means you don’t need to have seen Stranger Things to understand this! Literally the only connection is that Millie’s character in the show has fancy powers, and I was like, hey—telekinesis and Titans, what could be better? 
> 
> If you follow me on tumblr, you might also recognize this concept from an ask I got a long while ago. This was already in the works when I got it, but that ask is definitely responsible for the scene in San Francisco, so, thank you tumblr anon! I hope you guys enjoy!

It started when she was four. Maddie didn’t remember that first time well, just that she leaned over the side of her bed, stared down at her fallen stuffed lizard, and was terrified to reach for it in case the monster under her bed was waiting to grab her.

Her brother had picked the movie they’d watched just that night, and the words _use the force, Luke_ came back to her while her hand hovered a foot above her poor lizard. It gave a little tremble, she gasped, and a moment later it slowly floated up to her splayed fingers.

She ducked beneath the covers, giggling, with her lizard wrapped in her arms, and thought about how cool it was that she had magic powers.

More than anything else of this first occurrence, she remembered the way her shoulders drooped when her parents smiled indulgently as she told them what happened. They hadn’t believed her. She’d strained and struggled, trying to prove she was magic, but no matter what she did, nothing moved when she silently begged it to.

It started when she was four, but it would stay with her for the rest of her life.

• • •

Maddie kept a little notebook hidden in her room, and the only words she wrote in it were in code. It was a whole other language she’d spent ages tweaking, her fear of it being translated by someone constantly pushing her to improve it, make it more complex, make in unsolvable.

This little notebook carried the only existing records of her power, her gift, her curse. What she called it depended on how she felt about it at the time. When she was younger and it proved fickle to control and impossible to wield, it had been a thrilling secret. Something just for her to know, something she had that was hers and hers alone.

The more time passed, the more it became an annoyance, and later still, the source of some of her worst nightmares. Other people couldn’t do what she could, and the question of what might happen to her if anyone found out made her sick to her stomach.

It was made worse with how movies were her only source of information for what she could do. Superheroes, mutants, even just very special people—she watched what they did and how they practiced, used the rules binding _their_ abilities to try and figure out her own.

_(And she cringed at their fates: hunted, weaponized, hated and feared.)_

Turned out the force wasn’t a good comparison. Neither were superheroes, because whenever they moved things with their minds, there always seemed to be something else to their power. The closest anything ever came to what she could do was _Matilda_.

Beyond showing her good ways to practice using her power, the movie’s narrator offered what seemed to a younger, less fearful Maddie to be a very logical explanation on why she shouldn’t tell her parents. So she didn’t.

_(It also had the most hopeful, happy ending.)_

Instead, she practiced in the dark of the night, behind closed doors, and occasionally in their tree house.

Simple telekinesis, the ability to move objects with your mind. That was it. Useful on occasion, annoying when she lost control, and increasingly connected to her moods. The day it became terrifying solidified her determination to never share this secret.

It started with a watermelon in the tree house. She tried each day to see how long she could keep it standing on its end before she was too distracted or too tired or too twitchy. Her goal was to maintain her concentration for five minutes. This wasn’t about precision or multitasking or doing something complex.

It was about stamina. Her gym teacher talked about stamina sometimes, like when they were about to do the mile run.

Five minutes was such a long time, though, and she was only barely seven. The only things that held her attention for so long were books or movies.

One day, she came home from school angry. Her palms were scrapped, her knees hurt, and she boiled with a child’s rage at the boy who’d tripped her. She went up to the treehouse, clenched her fists—ignoring the sting—and glared mightily at the first unfortunate object to catch her attention, imaging the stupid boy’s stupid face.

It was the watermelon. The watermelon twitched and promptly exploded.

Maddie stood in shock, little bits of watermelon _everywhere_ , before eventually sitting down for a quick cry.

 _(She claimed the watermelon had been an unfortunate victim to a science experiment she’d heard about involving many,_ many _rubber bands. Her parents bought it.)_

Even though it hadn’t been that boy’s head, it _almost_ had been, it _could’ve_ been, and Maddie didn’t want to be a murderer. Her dreams didn’t seem to care about whether or not she killed people, and she could’ve done without the variety of creative ways she could possibly use her telekinesis to do so.

The only thing scarier than practicing after that was the thought of accidentally killing someone because she _hadn’t_ practiced.

• • • 

A few weeks after The Watermelon Incident, she woke up with an itch beneath her skin. It wasn’t one she could scratch, which made her increasingly cranky throughout the morning.

The ground rumbled and the itch intensified. Her head started to hurt. Everything started to go a little bit hazy as the ground really started to shake. Outside, something that sounded like a bomb going off rang through the streets as all the lights went dark. 

Maddie’s brain _burned_.

Her parents were yelling, a lot of people were yelling, and she was being picked up and jostled around and it wasn’t motion sickness that almost made her vomit.

A powerful anger seeped through her head, a garbled voice that she couldn’t quite understand slid needles into her nerves, and Maddie felt _small_.

There was smoke and fire and crashing-crumbling buildings. Maddie blinked sluggishly and found herself in an entirely new part of the city, surrounded by wreckage. She was on her feet, and she wavered there, eyes unfocused.

“Maddie!”

She looked up a little into her brother’s frightened face.

“Wha’s h’pp’nin’?” she slurred. The street quaked beneath her. A furious warmth burrowed into her skull. It clashed with the stiff electric burn of the other thing in her head. She leaned over and threw up.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her throat felt ablaze and her ears rang. The world was ending but that wasn’t why she was crying. It hurt. _She hurt._

A tug on her hand—she hadn’t even noticed someone grab it—sent her stumbling forward. There were people talking, her family was talking, but louder than their frantic voices was something else. Something right there in her own head. It was a language she didn’t quite understand even though it almost felt familiar.

Maddie wanted to curl up and sleep until all the noise and pain went away.

Someone brushed her hair out of her face. Her mother’s worried eyes filled her blurry vision and Maddie was hefted up off the ground.

Pressing her forehead into Mom’s shoulder, she whimpered as a terrible-horrible feeling shot through her spine. Her head was pulled up.

“Her nose is bleeding,” she heard Dad say. A cloth was dragged across her mouth. Maddie was distantly surprised to feel warm liquid immediately replace it.

A roar suddenly reverberated up from beyond a few skyscrapers. It lasted several seconds, making her family wince, as it grew louder and stronger. Maddie felt it down to her bones.

Blessedly, she blacked out.

When she opened her eyes again, her brain still really really hurt, but whatever had burned through her was gone. She was limp with exhaustion, head leaning against her mom’s neck.

“Andrew!” Dad screamed.

Maddie’s fingertips tingled. Her legs were all pins and needles. Every breath she took stung.

“Andrew! _Andrew!”_

The ground shook. Mom quickly turned around, and Maddie pulled back a tiny bit to see what she was staring up at.

She wasn’t sure what it was. A dinosaur, maybe, but they were all supposed to be dead. It rumbled, and that furious warmth filled her head again—only it wasn’t furious anymore. It was just tired.

Maddie was tired too.

Now that all the horrible sounds and feelings inside her skull were gone, she mustered the strength to poke at the warmth. It didn’t quite hurt the way the other one had. That one had burned her.

The dinosaur paused for a few seconds before shaking its head. Her mom’s arms clenched tightly around her. She was holding her breath, Maddie realized.

Like water through cupped hands, the warmth slipped away, leaving Maddie aching in every which way possible. The dinosaur disappeared from sight, but she heard a great big splash a minute later. Maybe the dinosaur was really the Loch Ness monster.

She was distracted from thoughts on the dinosaur by the awful sad look in her dad’s eyes as he turned to face her and Mom. Maddie glanced around, trying to spot her brother. But no matter how much she looked, he wasn’t there.

Andrew was gone.

• • •

Her telekinesis was—not quite _forgotten_ , exactly, but—ignored after that. Her grief made it unpredictable, and she couldn’t afford to lose control. It took months, almost a year, for Maddie to purposefully use it again.

It felt like starting over, in some ways, with the way she had to work to regain the control she’d once had.

Sometimes, she wished she could’ve gone with her dad, gotten out of the city and away from the noise. It hadn’t used to bother her, but now, if she wasn’t careful, her brain would ring with _too much_ sound.

It was confusing and she hated it, hated her powers genuinely for the first time. The pain it caused her—the remembered bleariness of San Francisco, the thundering heat that made her feverish, the strange and horrible sensation of sharing her head with something else—wasn’t worth being able to move things with her mind.

But Maddie never forgot that watermelon.

So she practiced. She got better. Her resentment began to dim and dull and fade away as she slowly honed her control. She discovered little tricks that helped her headaches, little cures for the buzzing that sometimes burrowed into her muscles.

Eventually, she discovered a void space buried deep in her head, a mindscape that was both her greatest refuge and most terrifying prison. It was blank and it was empty and the infinite stretch of blackness was cold-warm and loud-quiet. She wasn’t herself in there, and it frightened her as much as it became addicting. Maddie had to leave something behind to venture into the depths of herself, something only possible when there were no distractions around her physical body, and she could only reclaim those missing parts when she returned.

Her mindscape forced her to match its blankness. Fear and anxiety and sorrow were snuffed out between it’s nothing-walls and not-there-floor. With few exceptions, for as long as she stood within it, her emotions were muted.

To deal with grief, her mother turned to Monarch, her dad turned first to alcohol and then to Colorado, and Maddie turned to a space between spaces where there was ever only nothing.

_(If only nothing could exist in her mindscape, then what was she?)_

Time passed.

Years passed.

And there were some things Maddie began to forget, like the feel of something— _someone_ —foreign and vast lodged within her. She’d remember though. She’d remember.

• • •

Maddie considered herself very lucky to have been alone when it happened. Mothra’s egg chamber had always made her feel funny, but some part of her had been convinced that was normal, that all the others felt the intangible presence of the Titan growing right in front of them. The whole temple carried a weight to it, and she’d thought the reverent whispers meant she wasn’t the only one to notice.

She’d been sitting on the catwalk, legs dangling over the edge. It was another late night for her mom, and at ten years old, she wasn’t quite allowed to walk home and stay there by herself yet. Which she personally thought was stupid. The outpost was so isolated, what sort of trouble could she even get into?

Kicking her feet back and forth, she’d been reading a book and enjoying the special sort of silence in the chamber when the air sort of… popped.

At least, that was the only way she could describe it to herself later. A pop. Like during an altitude change.

So there’d been the inaudible pop, a sharp jab of pain behind her eyes, and the next thing Maddie had known, she was flat on her back and staring up at the craggy ceiling through a blurry mess of tears. The taste of blood sat heavy and metallic on her tongue, her fingertips tingled oddly, and for a long, disorienting moment, Maddie couldn’t quite feel most of her body.

Her head ached something fierce, like someone had jammed a knife or two right into her brain.

As she’d laid there, numb and bleeding profusely from her nose, a faint memory returned—one from the dreaded battle of San Francisco. It was the only other time she’d been so thoroughly knocked flat by her telekinesis.

Before she could get much farther with that thought process, the pain began to recede, leaving a soothing coolness in its place. It was very different from the half-remembered warmth and the worse electric burn. This was like water running gently over river stones, fresh and pleasant. Not too loud.

No matter how nice it felt, Maddie’s body gave a solid attempt at blacking out, overwhelmed by this new sensation.

Before her eyes could completely roll back in her sockets, Maddie choked out a gasp as she did the mental, telekinetic equivalent of curling her arms protectively over and around her brain, like someone who doesn’t want their desk neighbor to see what they’re working on.

The water kept burbling and trickling, though it went around her instead of into and through her, as if she had made a truly solid shield.

Keeping her protections locked in place, Maddie carefully pushed herself up on her elbows. The cavern was dark and quiet, and she was still alone. Her limbs felt stiff, as if she’d been laying on the cold, hard catwalk for hours instead of a few minutes.

Once she was upright, she balled up her firsts and roughly rubbed her eyes. Her shirt, when she finally looked down, was splattered with blood. It’d already started drying on her face, too, leaving her cheeks and chin itchy.

The book she’d been reading was on the rocks below the catwalk. Maddie sighed.

She left for the bathroom before trying to do anything about that, though. Luckily, she’d had a light sweatshirt with her today, so after cleaning her face off, she swapped it out with her shirt and resolved to sneak it in with the next load of laundry they did. If the stains weren’t gone after that, she’d toss the stupid thing out.

It was only when she reentered Mothra’s chamber that Maddie realized the water sensation had grown distant, just to strengthen again upon her return. She stared at the egg, remembered the Titans who invaded San Francisco, and swallowed heavily.

• • • 

It was manageable, mostly. As long as she shielded herself, the feeling was almost ignorable. Over the next two years, Maddie grew to enjoy the trickle, the coolness of it, and the way it was a much more pleasant background noise than a lot of other things she heard.

And then Mothra hatched.

What was once a bubbling spring became a steady waterfall, a little too cold and a little too strong. It’d be easy to get lost beneath the cascade. Her vision whited out for a second, and she felt the tell-tale tickle in her nose that signaled a nosebleed. It wasn’t _that_ bad, though. She was able to discretely swipe the first drops away, and it didn’t get any worse.

And then the containment field went up.

Her knees buckled and her lungs seized, and the only reason she didn’t completely fall over was because she’d been leaning on the window. She coughed, strangled, and accidentally sent a light splatter of blood onto the glass in front of her.

_(Her blood would go entirely unnoticed, on account of Alan Jonah shooting Dr. Tim Mancini through the head, leaving a much larger mess against the observation window, just a few minutes later.)_

Between the sensation of suddenly careening down icy, roaring rapids and the way she accidentally inhaled through her nose, for a moment, Maddie thought she was drowning. Her disorientation distracted her, and by the time she looked up again, her mom was kneeling in front of Mothra with the ORCA opened in front of her.

Maddie, understandably, panicked.

The roaring-screeching-shriek in her head was _so close_ to being real words. But she didn’t need to understand them to hear the anger in them, all defensive and thoughtlessly powerful. It was still contained, she realized as she slammed through the door onto the catwalk.

She nearly retched at imagining what it would be like if this voice, if this flood, was unleashed entirely. Yet, she was still on her feet. San Francisco hadn’t been this kind to her head. And as awful as it felt, having such an inhuman rage filling her, it didn’t hurt the way she would’ve expected.

It was over as quick as it began, though the ORCA’s wail—something she’d heard plenty of times before—for the first time briefly made her crosseyed. Maddie spasmed a little but the fit passed. They were okay. Everything was okay. Mothra was calm and close, and Maddie’s head was quieter.

And then the gunshots started.

• • • 

Antarctica was cold, so so cold, but there was something else snaking through her veins and leaving shivers and goosebumps in its wake that had nothing to do with physical temperatures. Monster Zero was frozen stiff but he wasn’t dead. Maddie didn’t even think he was properly asleep.

He was _waiting_.

She recoiled from the ice housing him, almost gagging on the vile hatred-anger-greed, on the hunger for flesh, on the phantom sensation of blood spilling victoriously down her throat. She wrapped her arms around herself and built her protections and shored up her walls. Full of dread, Maddie tried not to think about the enormity of Monster Zero, and how very very small she was standing before him.

_(What was a wall of children’s building blocks to a flood, a storm, a hurricane?)_

“Don’t,” she whispered to herself as her mom fiddled with the ORCA. Hyperaware of the mercenaries milling around them, each and every one armed to the teeth, she silently stared her mom down and tried to convey her desperate fear.

Releasing Monster Zero wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —go well.

Her mom only smiled back.

• • •

The moment the ice burst open beside the catwalk, Maddie’s mind went white with pain. This was worse, so _so_ much worse, than the anger she’d felt from Mothra when they’d tried to imprison her. Mothra’s mental voice hadn’t lashed out like this, hadn’t spiked through her head, hadn’t set her nerves on fire. She’d been left with a throbbing headache, and _plenty_ of questions now that she knew, _she knew,_ it was the Titans.

Why? _How?_ Where did the line between telekinesis and an entirely useless Titan-translator exist, and why did she have a foot on both sides of it?

But that was an existential crisis to have later, because while Mothra’s rage had been short-lived and not _too_ intense…

This wasn’t. Her mom dragged her out of the collapsing base, Maddie’s struggle to keep breathing born not from exertion or fear, but because her lungs might as well have been shriveled up or ripped out. Her mental walls had been razed to ash without ever having a hope of standing up against _this_. Her brain felt like it was about to explode.

_(Was this how the watermelon had felt, right before it burst into a thousand pieces? Could the sheer presence of a Titan make her head go_ **_splat_ ** _?)_

If her mom let go, Maddie would collapse. She knew that, because that’s how it had been in San Francisco. As long as the pressure remained in her head, thumping and pressing at her skull, she could focus on nothing else. Walking on her own was but a dream. Her knees were weak, her steps stumbling and unsure. She was numb, she was paralyzed. Her legs didn’t belong to her, her arms were like a puppet’s on strings.

_(It really was San Francisco all over again.)_

They were on the aircraft between one blink and the next, and Maddie wondered if she’d blacked out or if her mind had taken a quick break to let her body operate on auto-pilot. Her back was to the wall and she was trembling all over, feeling like she was on the verge of a seizure. Electricity sizzled through her veins.

It hurt. It hurt it hurt _it_ _hurt_ _ithurtithurtithurt_ —

Monster Zero rose up from the smoke and the _thing_ in her head separated into three distinct voices, all of them _yelling_. Blood poured down her face, mingling with the salt of her tears, slipping into her mouth and over her chin to streak across her throat. They didn’t even know she was _there,_ and they were _killing her_.

She was going to _die._

There was shouting outside her pulsing-pounding-aching head too. The aircraft hovered above the frozen landscape, the open hatch crowded with mercenaries eager to watch Monster Zero demolish the poor people Monarch had sent.

Her dad was down there. _Her dad was down there._

Maddie didn’t have the strength to stand, barely had the strength to move at all, and already, sounds were growing muffled in her ears. She’d black out entirely soon—a mercy, a blessing.

But she was brimming with anger—no, no, that word wasn’t _big_ enough for what she felt, it wasn’t enough to describe the blinding, all-consuming _rage_ and _loathing_ —that didn’t belong to her, bleeding from the force of it, so she rolled her head to the side, slumped boneless against the aircraft’s wall, and glared at the ORCA.

_(There was godly arrogance in the bloodshed Monster Zero caused, and she tasted it on her own tongue. These human heads she was surrounded by would be so easy to peel open. All she’d have to do is_ **_squeeze_ ** _.)_

Seeing what she was manipulating had always made it easier to do, but she’d stared down at the ORCA’s controls so many times, the image might as well have been burned into her retinas. Her head jerked the tiniest bit, a movement gone unnoticed, and the sound coming from its speakers changed.

Mid-strike, Monster Zero froze before slowly looking up. All three heads focused on their aircraft, and Maddie almost laughed at the panic Jonah’s people were suddenly showing. Her mom frantically fiddled with the ORCA, dropping to the floor to do so.

Maddie ignored them to close her eyes. She didn’t fully descend into her mindscape—couldn’t, not here, not in these conditions—but she went deep enough. It was like looking for a lit candle in a burning room full of flames, but her dad would never not be familiar to this sixth sense her powers gave her.

He was alive. _He was alive._

Maddie felt like crying all over again, even though she hadn’t stopped yet. For a beautiful moment, she almost didn’t even feel the agony ripping through her. She opened her eyes and laughed weakly, teeth stained red.

Her mom restored the original frequency, once again setting Monster Zero’s sights on Monarch’s soldiers. She and Jonah were arguing over what had happened, whether it a malfunction, whether the ORCA had been tampered with. Maddie returned to her half-way point, neither fully in nor fully out of her mindscape. She could see the snow and ice and the people running across it in a way that had nothing to do with sight. This—and the painful ability to hear and _feel_ Titans—had always been the only thing she could do beyond simple telekinesis.

Monster Zero’s presence stung in this in-between space too, and looking at him felt like a snake had slithered down her spine and coiled itself through her ribs to latch its venomous, needle-sharp fangs into her heart. He burned sun-bright, searing and scorching without care, and she saw all too clearly where one of the heads was moving. Her dad and someone else, an extremely familiar presence but one she hadn’t encountered in a while, ran alone across the wasteland.

The head lunged in the same second she recognized Aunt Viv—Aunt Viv, who she hadn’t seen in person for over a year, who was the sole adult Maddie had once considered sharing her secret with, her very own Miss Honey—and Maddie’s own human rage struck blindly against Monster Zero.

She pushed, or maybe pulled, at his heads—in his heads—howling her fury and power so loudly in her own she thought her ears were ringing. Her fingertips tingled and a fresh wave of blood began dripping from her nose. Only sheer willpower kept her from losing consciousness just then.

_(Monster Zero was no watermelon. But she wrenched and squeezed and yanked in a way she never ever let herself do, not to fruit, inanimate objects, or otherwise.)_

_(Maddie would never know this, but if it hadn’t been for his alien-strange, too-great healing ability, Monster Zero would’ve collapsed where he stood and not gotten up again.)_

Maddie sucked in a startled breath through her teeth as he faltered and veered away, leaving Aunt Viv alive. But she’d made herself known—she hadn’t even been aware she could, hadn’t ever expected someone to be able to _reach back_ —and Monster Zero’s presence in her brain drowned out everything else. He was _there,_ burning and electric and sharp and _too big, too much._

His claws dug into her shoulders—it wasn’t real, _it wasn’t real_ —and sliced through her flesh like a hot knife through butter. Her blood spilled, her skin boiled, and her body seized up, electrified.

If she hadn’t blacked out just then, Maddie was sure she would have screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels really good to finally start posting this. This'll be updated every Wednesday until it's complete!
> 
> Love you all!! ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favorite chapter from this story. I just really love it. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy! (also, i'm sorry there are so many scene breaks, hnn)

Maddie ached down to her bones when she woke up, a full-body pain that was unfamiliar. What she’d done with, or maybe to, Monster Zero—she’d never done it before. But then, everything with the Titans felt new.

She sat up with a groan. Dizziness joined the mother of all headaches she was experiencing. She must’ve been out for a really long time, since she recognized her surroundings as part of the bunker. They’d made it back from Antartica without her waking up.

The echo of Monster Zero’s voices lingered inside her. It was cold, colder than anything she’d ever felt before. Colder than the furious rapids Mothra had almost drowned her in, colder than Antarctica. It was heavy and sharp and she didn’t know how to make it go away.

With great effort, she rolled out of bed. Belly rumbling and feeling absolutely _drained_ , Maddie shuffled out into the hall to track down some food and painkillers. Then she’d go find her mom.

_(Later, she wouldn’t even be able to recall what she practically devoured, only that it tasted a hell of a lot worse coming back up.)_

• • • 

An important truth: Maddie had spent a long time being wary and maybe a little afraid of anyone finding out about her powers. But it’d been a distant, impersonal fear. Generalized. She’d never been scared of her parents before.

When she stood behind her mom and Jonah, watching the sheer amount of _death_ taking place on the screens in front of them, the ORCA sitting oh-so-incriminatingly off to the side, she found herself terrified of her own mother.

“This isn’t me. I’m not doing this,” her mom said. But oh, oh, wasn’t it? Emma Russell had opened the door, was she not responsible for what came through?

And all in the name of Maddie’s _brother?_

“You’re a monster,” she whispered when it was just her and her mom. Because, see, Maddie—she knew monsters. She’d felt them crawl through her brain, linger behind her eyes and in the very marrow of her bones. She’d seen them, heard them, was even now having trouble to _stop_ hearing them.

Monsters came in different shapes, did different things.

_(The watermelon hadn’t been that boy’s head. But it could’ve been. She knew exactly how easily it could’ve been.)_

She fled, then, before her mom could respond, because—well, that’s what you do with monsters. You run away from them.

Maddie locked the door to her bedroom, something writhing beneath her skin, and fumbled for the radio display along the wall. She pressed the headphones into her scalp and slapped the light switch. Fumbling in the dark, she raised the volume without touching the controls until quiet static flooded her ears.

The headphone wire was too short to reach her bed, so she spread-eagled on the hard floor instead.

With the lights off, the darkness was the same whether her eyes were open or closed, and with the static distracting her from anything else, it was almost easy to lose track of whether she was looking or not.

The pain vibrating through her went still and quiet as she slipped into her mindscape. It was a useful trick she’d discovered on accident long ago, how stepping into this nothingness would let her stop _feeling_ properly for a while.

Lights briefly danced around her, flickering little reminders of the people in the bunker. Anything much farther away simply didn’t exist. She went deeper, passing the in-between space and sinking directly into the infinite void.

She should’ve asked, she realized, standing on nothing surrounded by nothing feeling nothing, if her dad had survived. Her mom would’ve at least known that, right?

Rodan was free, Monster Zero was chaos and hatred, Mothra was missing, and Godzilla was… what was he?

Maddie wrapped her arms around herself and hunched over, eyes squeezed shut. If Monster Zero was going uncontested, did that mean Godzilla was dead?

No, no, he couldn’t be—Godzilla couldn’t be _dead,_ he… he was—

A trickle of warmth in the back of her head. A sad, slow pulse. A labored breath.

She opened her eyes to find flickering red light shining through the darkness like rays of sunlight through smoke. A shadow—her shadow—stretched across the nothing-floor in front of her. Maddie straightened and turned around.

_(She’d never thought about Titans in her mindscape before. She’d never reached out, desperate and childlike, to a Titan before.)_

As if she was nothing but a puppet, she walked forward, pulled inexorably by something _old_.

It looked like she was standing on a mirror with a broken reflection, or on the bottom side of a glass floor. The blank nothingness remained around her, but she looked down and saw the ceiling of an ancient cavern past her bare feet.

Following the odd reflection-that-wasn’t, following the warmth, the pulse, the breath, she stood upside-down before Godzilla. He was on his stomach, stretched out and radiating an awful kind of exhaustion. Whether he was asleep or slowly slipping away, Maddie couldn’t tell.

She stared for a long time, but time meant nothing in her mindscape. A minute was a second was an hour. Perhaps her physical body had taken only a single breath of its own since she came here. Perhaps a day had passed.

Maddie stared. The warmth in her head changed, and while it didn’t get any stronger, it felt a little clearer.

“You’re the second scariest thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said into the dark. Her voice echoed like there were a dozen of her speaking at once. She thought for a moment. “I take that back. You’re the third scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Monster Zero worming into her head was the new second.

Godzilla-through-the-glass predictably didn’t respond.

“You’re in my head,” Maddie continued. The mindscape devoured her voice. They were words no one else would ever hear. “That’s terrifying.”

But the warmth was small. Not fading, but… close. Close to fading.

“You’re not allowed to die,” Maddie told Godzilla.

A shuffling sound kept her from saying anything else, and a zing of fear shot through her. But no, she realized when she whipped around, it hadn’t come from her mindscape. She was still alone.

_(She had always been alone in her mindscape. That was the way it had to be. Right?)_

There was a man standing on Godzilla’s side of the glass, lugging along a bulky box. Curious, she watched him pull something out and mess with it before heading toward Godzilla. The haze, and being upside-down from them, made it difficult for Maddie to make out what he had.

And then—she saw his face. “Dr. Serizawa?” she gasped. “What are you—I don’t think you should be here.”

Naturally, he couldn’t hear her. Keeping an eye on him while he went to Godzilla’s snout, she ran across the glass to see what he’d brought with him.

Maddie heard the ticking first, so oddly horribly loud in her mindscape. She stared down at the shiny metal for a long moment before crouching down and craning her head around.

It hit her—ironically, with the suddenness and force of a bomb—what she looking at. At what she was about to witness.

**Thirteen, twelve, eleven—**

“You can’t!” she screamed to absolutely no one at all. Maddie sprang up and ran after Dr. Serizawa, who couldn’t die, he couldn’t, he was too _good_ to die, but it was _too late_ , and a countdown from eleven-ten-nine was _too short_ and and and—

“ _No!”_ Maddie screamed, reaching, reaching into the nothingness. Blood splattered from her nose. The nuke went off. Her eardrums felt like they were _bursting_ , like someone had cleaved her head with an axe, and a sharp crack tore through her—

Maddie violently wrenched herself out of her mindscape with a choked cry, yanking the headphones off as she lunged up to twist, just in time to vomit on the floor. The darkness was a blessing as what sounded like all those screens above the radio station shattered. She heaved again and again, blood running hot across her face, and gasped helplessly on her tears.

And through it all, she couldn’t get the image of Dr. Serizawa joining her on her side of the glass out of her head, his eyes wide and disbelieving, right before the nuke went off and washed them both in harmless white.

• • •

_(Monarch mourned the tragic but noble sacrifice of one Dr. Ishirō Serizawa. Godzilla returned to the surface, triumphant but confused. He was reasonably sure humans hadn’t developed the ability to simply vanish from sight.)_

• • • 

Maddie felt well and truly delirious as she grabbed the ORCA and left the bunker. Her head was pounding, vibrating, her head had a hurricane ripping through it and she wanted it to stop. Fenway Park, Fenway Park, she kept repeating to herself.

The fence at the bunker’s entrance twisted and warped in on itself as she walked away from it. Maddie didn’t notice.

She was coming apart at the seams and _she didn’t know why_. Never before had her telekinesis been so hard to pull in, been so hard to contain. There was a _person_ in her mindscape, what the hell was she supposed to do about that, and the echo of Monster Zero still hadn’t left her brain.

Not even an hour ago, she’d seen the heart of a nuclear bomb, but only because she’d been standing on the safe side of a one-way mirror—that was the right metaphor for it, not a true mirror or simple glass, but a one-way—and now she was off to play bait for a Titan.

Maddie laughed hysterically. And it still wasn’t the scariest thing to ever happen to her.

• • • 

The ORCA was _loud_. Its wail bounced around the confines of her skull and made goosebumps rise along her arms. Her stomach turned in on itself, leaving her nauseous and unsteady. It felt like the devil’s voice, whisper-yelling in her ear in a language she couldn’t truly understand.

Maddie sat for a while in one of the corridors, hands over her ears to try and block out the sound. She should leave, she thought, she should leave Boston. Empty, evacuated Boston. What was she waiting for?

She pushed herself up with the help of the wall, wavering drunkenly before regaining her balance enough to walk without falling over. Before she could decide which way to go, the building shook and thunder boomed overhead.

Heart racing, she forced herself to go back into the broadcast room. The mild weather outside had turned dark and stormy. Rain fell in heavy sheets as lightning flashed in the distance. And though she couldn’t see him, she felt him.

Monster Zero had arrived.

Gritting her teeth as she tried to shield herself as much as possible, Maddie went to unplug the ORCA. The floor trembled beneath her as she finished, and that was about when she looked up right into one of Monster Zero’s eyes.

All the breath in her lungs left in a whoosh, like it’d been punched out of her, and every last one of her senses failed.

She went deaf first, could see things falling to the floor without a whisper of sound, could see the rain hitting the window in silence, and she could only feel the wheezy gasp leave her. Maddie lost all sensation in her body—wasn’t even sure how she remained standing, since her feet and legs might as well have ceased to exist—right before everything went blinding white.

For a second, Maddie thought she had died.

**_“What’s this?”_** a poisonous, oily voice bellowed in her head. It was the only thing she could feel, the lightning racing through her brain. A sibilant chuckle tore through her. **_“The mind from the frozen land.”_**

_Get out,_ Maddie tried to scream. _Get out, get out, get out._

A faint pang tickled at the edge of her awareness. She’d fallen to her knees. The most distant of sensations registered against her fingertips. There was something in her hands.

**_“You are not so strong now. Look how easily we pin your wings.”_ **

Was she breathing? Maddie couldn’t tell.

A chorus of voices laughed cruelly at her. It felt like her ribs were being pulled apart.

Maddie couldn’t escape, couldn’t push herself past Monster Zero back into the real world. He pressed down against her mental presence, crushing her with careless ease. Fine. If she couldn’t go up, so to speak—

With a horrible tearing sensation, Maddie forced herself deeper into the white, until she was surrounded by black. Her mindscape. She knelt in the nothing, palms pressed flat against the cool emptiness, panting around the blood leaking from her nose. Hand shaking, she reached up and discovered her ears were bleeding too.

When she let her arm fall, the nothingness splashed. Blurry-eyed, she slowly realized a thin layer of liquid covered the nonexistent floor.

“Please be water,” she gasped hoarsely. Her everything ached strangely. She’d never forced herself into her mindscape before, never descended without being prepared.

That tether—the real-world darkness and white noise—was gone. She didn’t know how to get out. Entirely involuntarily, a sob burst from her sore throat. Had her body started screaming while Monster Zero had her trapped?

Weak and scared, she lowered herself to sit on her legs, forehead pressed to her folded arms. Hunched in a little ball, she cried. The hopefully-water brushed her nose.

“Maddie?”

She shot up in a panic, feeling like her heart was ready to burst free of her chest. Slowly dropping to one knee right in front of her was Dr. Serizawa.

“Hi,” she croaked, because she wasn’t sure what you were supposed to say to someone you’d pulled into a nothing-dimension with your brain.

Dr. Serizawa, still in that baggy suit, looked around, plainly curious, but he didn’t ask her any of the questions tumbling around behind his eyes. Instead, he reached out and gently placed his hands on her shoulders.

Maddie, still disoriented and numb and hurting, didn’t realize what he was doing until she suddenly found her face pressed against his neck. One of his hands came up to rest on the back of her head. The other remained curled around her, lightly rubbing over her spine.

_(The pain lessened. Human touch was a powerful thing, even more so in a place where human touch should not, technically, have existed.)_

“I cannot claim to understand exactly what this is or what has happened,” Dr. Serizawa said quietly. She stifled a sob. “But,” he continued, “I believe you are stronger than whatever has hurt you.”

Without pulling away, she shook her head. “I’m not,” she whispered. “It’s Monster Zero and he’s—he’s too big. It’s too much. I can’t…”

“You saved my life, Maddie, in a rather impossible situation. You have beaten a nuclear warhead. Who else can claim that?”

She huffed a laugh. “Godzilla could.”

Something clicked. She leaned back, face slack in realization. “Godzilla,” she repeated. “That’s why I was there, when you… I felt him. I…”

“He should be on his way to fight Ghidorah now,” he said.

Who—? No, not important. Maddie thought about San Francisco and the warmth that didn’t hurt and the pressing pain of Monster Zero’s mind and the way the MUTOs had burned.

“I have to go,” she said in a rush. Before she could stand, she lunged forward to hug Dr. Serizawa again. “I promise I’ll find a way to get you out of here, Dr. Serizawa!”

He laughed as she stumbled up. “I have no doubt! Good luck, Maddie.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and the moment she thought of Godzilla, that feeling was there, woven around her, bright like the Northern Lights, warm like a blanket, and stronger than anything she’d ever felt before. Even Monster Zero.

Words didn’t work the same here and she couldn’t use them right, not yet, but when she nudged, she got a poke back. And when she tried to imagine leaving her mindscape, akin to pushing up off the bottom of a lake, she didn’t feel alone. No, definitely not alone—she was being pulled up to the surface.

The first breath she took, resettled in her body, hurt. The frozen quality of time in her mindscape shattered, and Maddie, having fallen no farther than her knees, jabbed blindly at the ORCA’s controls—still held in her hands—before Monster Zero could shove her down again.

Her hearing returned with a roar as he reared back, heads thrashing. Maddie shot to her feet, keeping the ORCA clutched to her chest, and ran. There was blood on her cheeks from her ears, her hair sticking to it, blood down her chin—her nose had bled more these past few days than it had her entire _life_ —but the full-body pain was almost gone.

Monster Zero struck at her—she felt it coming and she flinched—but the mental blow never landed. A shield of sorts, better than her own had ever been, surrounded her. Her mind had been made into an impenetrable fortress.

Naturally, right as she laughed breathlessly in celebratory relief, the building began to explode. Section by section, always just a few steps behind her, Monster Zero vaporized the concrete and metal separating her from him.

Her skin tingled as lightning gathered. With one of the most instinctual uses of her telekinesis to date, she blew open the door at the end of the hallway with barely a thought, leapt out into the rain, and, with a quick spin, jerked her chin up.

Massive pieces of rubble lurched to obey her, and just in time. The rest of the building burst apart in a shower of heavy debris and hungry flames. None of it touched her where she hid behind her makeshift barrier.

She let the chunks of concrete fall as Monster Zero’s heads slowly turned to look down at her, standing tall and untouched on Fenway’s ruined grass. Maddie was already soaked through, and she felt the blood on her face start to be washed away in the downpour. She dropped the ORCA, still wailing its shrieking song.

They didn’t seem to care. Monster Zero’s eyes were on her. Past the protective barricade wrapped around her mind, she sensed his immeasurable rage.

He screeched. Lightning, acidic-yellow and sharp, built up across his wings and over his throats.

A one-way mirror. She could see through it just fine, pass through it herself, even. But, in the most important way, she was hidden from him.

Maddie took a deep breath, pictured that stupid watermelon from all those years ago, and _screamed_. She became deaf to the rest of the world. Anything beyond the churning, furious storm of fury that she was the center of was forgotten.

The Titan before her writhed and twisted. She _shoved_ at him, physically straining with the force of it. One of the heads—she couldn’t tell which, not through the knot they’d turned themselves into—went limp and her palms reverberated with the sensation of a snapped neck.

It wouldn’t last for long, but she didn’t really need it to. Not when the warmth wrapped around her was growing.

Monster Zero stumbled and didn’t have the chance to right himself before he was engulfed in blazing blue light.

Godzilla roared as he charged across Boston, spines glowing, eyes livid, and atomic breath forcing Monster Zero to remain off his guard.

Taking his distraction as the opening it was, Maddie turned and slipped away. She thought quickly as she ran. Adrenaline was doing a fine job of carrying her forward right now, but it wouldn’t be long before that little stunt caught up with her. She had to find somewhere safe enough to rest once she came down from this high.

The city began to crumble behind her as the two Titans met. Cool water rushed through Godzilla’s still-standing shield and brought her to a halt. Two different screeches filled the air right as Maddie recognized where she was. She could find her way to their old Boston home from here, she knew it as surely as she knew she’d have been dead twice over were it not for Godzilla.

There was a pair of Titans in her head, a wellspring and aurora borealis, a contrast of cool calm and warm protective power.

It didn’t hurt.

Maddie ran, and the earth shook.

• • • 

Elsewhere in the smoke, Mark Russell called his child’s name into the empty, yawning darkness. He didn’t receive an answer. This was the second time in his life this had happened.

Elsewhere in the rain, Emma Russell held the ORCA, perfectly intact, and wondered why none of the Titans in Boston were under its thrall.

Elsewhere in the sky, Rodan tackled Mothra to the ground, burning a trail through concrete and buildings that scorched the edges of her wings.

Elsewhere in the ruins, Ghidorah wrapped his tails around his greatest enemy and began to fly upward.

Elsewhere, elsewhere, Godzilla hoped the tiny mind he was fiercely guarding against the false king’s wrath wouldn’t be damaged should he falter, or worse, die.

• • •

Their Boston home had been blasted away. Maddie was nowhere to be found. Mark and Emma kept shouting.

• • •

Monster Zero let go and Godzilla fell, blazing his way back to earth. If he survived the impact, he would be hurt. Really hurt. Maybe too hurt.

Atop a building that had not yet succumbed to the battle, Maddie stood with her hand outstretched. At this distance, and with Godzilla so high up, the perspective almost made it look like she was holding him.

She tasted blood on her tongue, though her lips were sealed tight in her strain. It had not come from her nose. Tears tracked through the ash on her cheeks. Dizziness threatened her. She widened her stance and locked her knees.

Godzilla plunged through the clouds. Maddie pictured the nuke’s countdown. Eleven-ten-nine.

She coughed. Let the blood spill up and out of her throat. Her hand shook and her thoughts silenced themselves.

Out of sight, Monster Zero screeched his victory. Rodan had fled. She didn’t know where Mothra was, but she could still feel her close by.

A strained noise built up in her chest and she had no choice but to let it out, let it build into a weak scream full of pained struggle and angry determination.

Maddie’s hand trembled, and Godzilla’s descent slowed. By the time he touched down, the earth barely felt it.

Her shoulders drooped and she wavered where she stood, on the edge of a small skyscraper. Her ears buzzed and more blood trickled out of her mouth. Godzilla was already standing again, ready to continue the fight. Maddie nodded, satisfied.

He’d helped her. It was only right to help him. 

She tried to take a step back, to climb down and find the roof’s door and return to solid ground. Instead, her eyes slipped shut and she tipped forward, into roughly twenty stories’ worth of free fall.

• • •

The Osprey flew away from Godzilla, who glowed magma-red, as he finally brought an end to Ghidorah’s brief reign.

Mark stood at the entrance, Rick and Ilene just behind him, and watched. On one of the benches, Emma sat with her head in her hands, silent.

They had been forced to flee before they could find Maddie. Godzilla veritably melted the city, and every adult on the aircraft was painfully aware that there was a child down there somewhere.

Except.

Mothra’s trilling screech followed them over the ocean, and the humans tensed as she swooped down toward their Osprey, which felt much smaller than it had a moment ago. She descended gracefully, bearing the scars of battle in the ragged, smoldering tips of her wings, until her body was behind and slightly below them.

Lying unconscious on Mothra’s head was Maddie.

Mark laugh-cried and Emma went boneless against the wall, save for her hands, which clenched tightly at the edge of her seat. Ilene sighed in great relief and Rick laughed boisterously, calling out a “Hell yeah!” in his excitement.

For the remainder of their flight, Mothra followed them, steadier than anyone could have expected her to be. When they finally touched down—in some field where emergency relief was taking place for the Monarch personnel involved in the care and keeping of the world—the Russells anxiously awaited the return of their daughter while someone else called for a medic or two.

Mothra slowly dipped her head, and nothing less than a dozen individuals were waiting to catch Maddie as she slid down.

She was found to be soaking wet and shivering, dehydrated somehow, and absolutely covered in too much blood. To the medics’ confusion, there didn’t seem to be any terrible injury to account for so much blood loss, much less her persistent unconsciousness.

Vivienne Graham joined them at some point, pointedly didn’t speak to Emma—she was hardly the only one to give the traitor in their midst the cold shoulder—and told them the Titans had continued to remain calm and docile since they initially quit wreaking destruction.

Ling Chen, too, arrived and immediately joined her twin. The two of them were graciously allowed close to Mothra, who had settled down in the grass with no apparent intent to leave.

And through it all, Maddie remained silent and still on the outside. On the inside, she was caught in something like her mindscape and a dream combined. It would be mostly forgotten once she finally woke up, but the lingering impression of sitting in a glade surrounded by flowers and a happily burbling stream, and the sensation of a heavy, warm blanket covering her shoulders and back, would never quite fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love being a writer, because i get to write scenes that perfectly suit my fancy
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, we get some face-to-face first meetings.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Waking up in some degree of pain was becoming normal. Maddie grumbled to herself about that as she blinked her gritty eyes open. It felt like she’d been someone’s punching bag. And, big surprise here, she had a headache.

When _hadn’t_ she had a headache these past few days, honestly.

Trying to ignore the way it felt like someone had turned the backs of her eyes into pincushions, Maddie pushed herself up with a groan. She didn’t recognize the room she was in or the clothes she was wearing—a solid black t-shirt, incredibly soft to the touch, and fuzzy blue pajama pants decorated with little turtles.

She loved them. She’d love them more if she knew where they came from and who put them on her.

Despite the exhaustion weighing her down, she forced herself out of the bed and to the door of the very plain room. The hallway beyond told her no more about where she was than the room did.

Another door halfway between her and the end of the corridor clicked open just as she stepped through hers. A young man wearing a vaguely familiar Monarch nurse’s uniform emerged, just saying over his shoulder, “Of course, sir.” He caught sight of her as he closed the door behind him and visibly startled.

“You’re awake!” he said.

Maddie nodded, since she was, indeed, awake. “What is this place?” she asked.

“Oh! It’s one of Monarch’s spare residential buildings. It wasn’t being used before, so everyone who didn’t need intense medical attention was brought here after the whole…” He waved his hand around his head. “Your parents are downstairs, if I’m not mistaken. I can show you, if you’d like?”

“That’d be great, thanks.” Maddie joined him, barefoot, and they walked in silence until they reached an elevator. Then, she asked, “Hey, what time is it?”

The man flicked his sleeve back to check his watch. “Four in the morning.”

Maddie opened her mouth to say something along the lines of _oh, that’s not too bad_ or _no wonder I’m still so tired,_ when he continued, “Of the day _after_ the day after the battle. You were unconscious for quite some time.” He sent her a small smile. “You didn’t have any injuries as far as we could tell, but if you hadn’t woken up by this morning, we were going to have you transferred to a proper hospital.”

“I was asleep for over twenty-four hours?”

“Yes. We had hoped you simply needed rest after so much stress.” A slight frown formed on his face. “There was quite a bit of blood, but an odd lack of injuries. What—”

To Maddie’s great relief, the elevator doors slid open into what seemed to be a common room or lounge. Her dad was sitting right there, and he spotted her immediately. The way he leapt up gave her more than enough of an excuse to escape any questions she couldn’t answer.

“Dad!” She was happily smushed against him in a desperate hug.

“You’re okay,” he whispered. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

She didn’t try to pull away until he loosened his death-grip himself. “I’m fine, Dad, promise.”

“You still look exhausted, kiddo.” He sounded so worried as he brushed her hair away from her face. She bit her lip and wished she could reassure him that she really was fine, honest, it was just that her magic telekinesis powers took a lot out of her when she used them like she had two days ago.

Never mind that she’d never even used them like that prior to two days ago. The heaviest thing she’d ever tried to move before was a couch or something, maybe a small car, except now it was Godzilla. Maybe she should just be glad she hadn’t broken something pulling that little stunt, though now that she was thinking about it, her wrist kinda twinged when she moved it.

She tried to look innocent as she shrugged. “It’s been a long few days. Um, I don’t remember leaving Boston.”

Her dad’s facial expression did something complicated. “Mothra found you and carried you out before Godzilla could burn you alive.”

What. “What.”

“And she’s been following us since she returned you to us, so we can only guess she’s sticking around to see you.”

But if Mothra was nearby—why hadn’t Maddie felt her right away? She turned her attention inward as her dad guided her over to a table with a few other familiar faces—she sent a smile to the Chens—and told her to sit down while he got her some food.

Despite the headache, her brain hadn’t felt so quiet in a long time. For a moment, she thought she was alone (the way she’d always used to like it) and was a little surprised to realize she was disappointed by the prospect.

But then, as soon as she reached out, she was met in the middle. Though the mental touch was wordless, Maddie still received the impression that Mothra hadn’t wanted to intrude.

After years of having her mental space to herself, the idea of having someone else in there with her—not counting poor Dr. Serizawa, who she couldn’t feel or hear anyway—should’ve been terrifying and awful, especially given how much pain she’d experienced from recent intrusions, both purposefully and not.

A distinct tang of sorrow and remorse brushed through Maddie’s mind. Lacking words, Maddie offered her forgiveness and understanding and lack of a resentment the only way she could. She tugged a little on the fragile connection, welcoming Mothra in.

Her headache immediately lessened as the representation of Mothra’s presence, that refreshingly chilly water, rushed quietly through her. She hoped no one noticed the sudden release of tension in her shoulders as she relaxed a little easier with that awful throbbing gone.

It was better than drugs, that was for sure.

Without entirely leaving the safety of her internal refuge, Maddie looked over at the Chens. “Why are you guys all awake right now, anyway?”

Dr. Ling smiled a little. “There is much to do, and we must act as soon as possible. Delaying our response to this tragedy does us no favors.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Dr. Ilene added wryly.

Maddie winced a little and nodded. “Is it… I mean, how bad is it?”

The look they exchanged between each other wasn’t reassuring in the slightest.

“The death toll is still rising,” Dr. Ling finally said. “During the time Ghidorah forced the Titans to cause destruction, entire cities were leveled. They moved slowly—small mercies—and since it was only a single Titan in each area, they became easy enough to avoid.”

“The initial shock of their appearances made reaction times slow. Evacuations began late, but they helped.” Dr. Ilene leaned over the table. “But the news isn’t worse than it is because they did not spend long under Ghidorah’s control. Thank you for that, Maddie.”

She shrugged helplessly as her dad returned. “I was just doing what was right. I didn’t…” Her dad took a seat after he set down a plate with decent-looking reheated pizza on it and a glass of water. “I didn’t see what happened until the end. I missed everything before the other Titans were set loose. But, Ghidorah—that’s, is that Monster Zero?”

“Yeah,” her dad said, and then he pointedly waited to continue until she started eating. “Emma called us right before she woke Rodan. She said you were unconscious, that you were probably hit by some rubble when the ice burst or something.”

Glad for her mouthful of pizza, Maddie merely nodded. It was as good an explanation as any.

“That was a crazy thing you did, taking the ORCA to Boston like that.” He frowned. “You scared me real bad, kiddo.” Something seemed to take hold of him then, a memory, perhaps, and he stared down at the table like he wasn’t seeing a thing.

Maddie let him have his moment, and considered his words. It really had been crazy, hadn’t it? He wasn’t far off the mark—ha—given what she remembered of her half-fevered state following the nuke incident, which had followed after the Antarctica incident, which had followed after the Mothra incident, which had brought back some not-so-forgotten memories of the San Francisco incident.

Hm. Maybe she was lucky to have escaped with _herself_ intact. _A long few days_ didn’t quite accurately sum up the sheer level of awful the past week or so had been.

A light touch in her mind settled the hysteria that threatened to rise up in her. There was a touch of humor as well, and when Maddie peeked closer, she saw that Mothra had her own thoughts on everything that had happened since she’d hatched. Chief among them was the surprise-awe-worry-delight at finding a little human who could reach into others’ heads, an ability she’d never expected to see beyond herself and her kindred.

Maddie tried her best to convey that this was all new to her, that she’d never thought she’d find _anyone,_ human or otherwise, who could do something similar to what she could. There was no lying in the mind, so the bit of tentative shyness she was feeling slipped through on the tail of her own awe-surprise-uncertainty-welcome.

The water continued to trickle and Maddie felt the echo of light shooting through Mothra’s wings. She smiled around her pizza.

“That being said,” her dad abruptly continued, startling her from her thoughts. What had he even been saying before—that she’d scared him with the ORCA stunt? Yeah, sounded about right. “I’m proud of you, Maddie. What you did, you saved a lot of people.” He let her bask in the praise for a moment before adding, “I’ll let you off the hook this time, but if you ever do anything like that again, I’m grounding you for life.”

The Chens laughed as Maddie kicked at her dad’s chair, rendered mute by the food in her mouth.

When they’d calmed down and Maddie had swallowed, she took a quick look around the common room. It was a large open area, and a few insomniacs or workaholics dotted the various couches and tables. She couldn’t help but notice that exactly none of them were her mom.

Did she dare bring her up?

Mothra’s presence strengthened within her, making her unconsciously sit up straighter. With a little borrowed courage, she took a deep breath and asked, “Where’s Mom? The, uh, nurse who brought me down made it sound like you were both down here.”

The wind left her dad’s sails in a hurry. She felt bad, bad enough that she briefly contemplated taking the question back and trying to see if she could find Emma Russell’s little flame in her half-mindscape, regardless of the consequences.

She could _feel_ the disapproving frown being aimed at her from the Titan currently sitting shotgun to her very thoughts. It wouldn’t hurt that much, probably, it was just that she was still really sore from all the other mental gymnastics she’d recently done.

Amazingly, Mothra’s resolve to _not_ let her do that only grew stronger.

Lucky for the both of them, her dad answered the question. “She was here a little while ago—you just missed her, actually—but they’ve been taking her aside to talk in private.” Anticipating her next logical question, he told her, radiating regret, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, Maddie. There are a lot of people either hurt or dead because of her and Jonah. Ditching him at the last minute doesn’t mean much.”

“She’s cooperating, though,” Dr. Ilene said. “It doesn’t make up for the damage, but it will be remembered.”

“And Aunt Viv?” Maddie bit her tongue to keep her emotions off her face as she remembered Antarctica and the too-close call.

“She’s very unhappy with your mother right now,” Dr. Ling answered quietly. “As a side effect of Emma’s actions, Dr. Serizawa… I’m sorry, Maddie, but he’s dead.”

But he _wasn’t._ And there was no way she could tell them that without giving herself away. But an explanation had to come from _somewhere,_ since she was absolutely going to figure out how to pull him back into the real world.

He’d probably keep her secret, if she asked. Dr. Serizawa would probably shrug off his survival as some incomprehensible miracle if she begged him not to tell anyone.

This decision, to her relief, could be made later, because a loud trilling screech came from outside. Her dad made a face at the reminder that, oh yeah, a Titan was hanging around just to see his daughter.

Maddie, done with her pizza and grateful for an escape, patted him on the shoulder as she stood. “You said she literally saved my life, Dad. You can’t think she’ll do something now.”

Looking a bit constipated, he said, “Just, please be careful not to let her step on you or something?”

She sent him an exasperated eye-roll before walking away. The door leading outside was easy to find, and Maddie took a moment to stand still, wiggle her bare toes in the grass, and stare up at the early morning sky.

She was alive. Her parents were alive. The Chens and Aunt Viv and Dr. Serizawa were alive. And so were Mothra and Godzilla. Presumably. She hadn’t actually heard any updates about Godzilla.

A flutter of wings above her distracted her from turning inwards to find the answer, and Maddie couldn’t help her beaming smile at the sight of Mothra landing in front of her. She ran the short distance through the cool grass to where the Titan stood, safely away from the building.

Mothra bent her head to meet her, and the thread connecting their minds popped with firework-bursts of color and light the moment they touched. Maddie laughed delightedly.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, leaning her forehead against Mothra’s. “When you and Rodan were fighting, I—he was burning you, wasn’t he? I wanted to help, but Godzilla…” She trailed off, remembering the pit in her stomach that had formed when she had realized what Monster Zero—Ghidorah, whatever—was planning. A fall from that height couldn’t have ended well.

A slip of reassurance wove through her. Mothra had handled Rodan just fine on her own, in the end. The foreign, overpowering relief that followed on its heels settled in her bones. The Queen was grateful that she had helped Godzilla.

“I don’t really remember anything after that,” Maddie admitted. “I think I fell? Dad said you brought me out of the city, so,” a thrill of disbelieving fear shot through her, “does that mean I fell off the building?”

Mothra’s emotional response—all concern and a wordless sense of _just-in-time_ —was answer enough. She nuzzled down against Maddie and cooed in a way that offered comfort. The terrifying worst hadn’t happened, because Mothra had been there to catch her.

Pulling back so she could look up into her eyes, Maddie said as sincerely as she could, “Thank you for saving me.”

Her entire body vibrated as she purred in response, making Maddie laugh again. Mothra raised her head suddenly, and she stared off to the side for a few seconds before flexing her wings with an inviting chirp.

Sparing a quick glance at the building, Maddie decided it wasn’t like her dad wouldn’t guess who she’d left with, and with a little help, climbed onto Mothra’s back. They took to the slowly lightening sky, and the world grew smaller beneath them with every wing flap.

Once she was more sure of her balance, Maddie leaned up on her knees and stretched her arms out. The wind streamed around her, blowing back her hair and borrowed pajamas. She whooped loudly as they sailed over buildings and roads, and Mothra joined her with a screech.

Though Maddie had no idea which state they were in, the Monarch building evidently wasn’t far from the coast—at least, not for a fast-flying Titan—and they were only in the air for a few minutes when the ocean came into view. Lying in the dark water with his snout in the shallows was Godzilla, who raised his head as they approached.

It hit Maddie, right then, that she hadn’t actually met Godzilla before, not like she had with Mothra. There’d been the close encounter in her mindscape, but it wasn’t like Godzilla knew she’d been there. And though he’d protected her from Mons—Ghidorah—in Boston, it wasn’t like they’d really crossed paths.

Did he even know she was the one who’d slowed his possibly-fatal descent?

Mothra picked up on the question as she landed, and though there seemed to be a subtle _yes_ hidden in her mental presence, the sensation of _go to him_ was stronger. With this gentle encouragement, Maddie slipped down to the sand. It had long lost its warmth, leaving it cool beneath her feet as she walked across the beach to the King. She was vaguely aware of Mothra settling where she’d touched down, offering a minimal amount of privacy. Similarly, though she didn’t retreat entirely from Maddie’s head, she slipped to the outermost edge.

Godzilla, she noticed as she approached, was clearly still recovering from the fight. Bloody scratches and bite marks littered what she could see of his scales, and there was a familiar slump to his posture that she recognized from the cavern.

His victory had not been without cost.

Maddie stopped a little bit in front of him, standing in the cold water just past her ankles, so she wouldn’t be entirely hidden by his snout.

“Nice to finally meet you face to face,” she said with a little smile.

Half-closing his eyes, he tilted his head with a little growl. Even without having him in her head, she knew it was a greeting. Speaking of being in her head…

Maddie tentatively reached out, wondering if he was holding back like Mothra had. The warmth met her easily but didn’t immediately follow when she invited it in. _Why,_ she tried to ask, though sharing words still felt a little beyond her. She’d need a lot of practice to communicate internally as easily as she did externally.

Of course, she could ask about Godzilla’s hesitation just fine, standing right in front of him as she was. It didn’t feel right, though.

So she tried to share her confusion, and made her welcome clear.

A light touch, dripping in regret-uncertainty-fear, pressed against her, and immediately, she felt as if she was somewhere else. As if she was _someone_ else.

In quick flashes, there was pain and fire, sharp teeth and crumbling buildings. Smoke and darkness, the crunch of metal and concrete underfoot. Dizzy with it, Maddie filled in the missing name to what she was seeing.

San Francisco.

From a greater height than she had ever seen the city herself, she looked down through another’s eyes and felt a fierce determination to _stop them, to put an end to these destructive parasites, to keep going no matter what, to fight as long as there was breath in these lungs._

Before she could get too lost in the memory, she was nudged in a new direction. Victory thrummed in her veins, alongside exhaustion from the days-long hunt prior to the taxing battle. And then, like a pebble dropped into a perfectly still pond, a ripple of something foreign washed through memory-Godzilla’s head, with the faintest of pressures right at the center.

Maddie felt it the way he’d felt it—a tiny little touch soaked in pain and misery and fatigue briefly alighted within him, before it was gone as quick as it came. He paused for a moment, but the last remnants of the weak presence faded and did not return.

Their surroundings changed, and a new memory took its place. The cavern, from when he’d been so close to death. And she felt his tired surprise, as he lay there, when a sensation from years ago quickly swept over him, ticklish almost, only to vanish again. He was not so quick to let it go, though, and just before the touch—shot through with suffering—could pass entirely, the thinnest of threads was formed between him and it.

It was only a short whilelater—when he was following the siren call of a fake alpha, knowing his old enemy would be there—that the thread lit up with the brightness of his radiation and the suddenness of a lightning strike. At the other end, clear for the first time, was a young mind wreathed in agony. _Lost, lost, I am lost,_ projected through the connection, a piece of honesty ripped from its source-mind, along with a desperate, wordless plea for help.

And once that help was offered and gratefully accepted, Maddie felt the way he had stayed, wrapping himself around her own mind with a growled dare for Ghidorah to try and strike her again.

Maddie slipped free and was shocked to find she’d managed to remain standing through it all. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She shook her head at Godzilla, who was watching her closely. She didn’t understand. He had _helped_ her. Why was there fear holding him back?

_There was always pain,_ she heard, so close but still not quite real words. _You were always hurting._

Now this, she would need to speak for. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “The first time was the MUTOs more than you, and I was really little and had no real experience anyway. The second time, I was afraid you had died, and any pain was leftover from meeting Ghidorah. And he was the cause the third time, too.”

A funny warble left his mouth. Denial and a sense of _too much_ pressed against her for a moment. And then— _dangerous, could crush you._

“You wouldn’t,” Maddie told him with complete certainty. She reached out again, caught hold, and tugged firmly this time.

Mothra trilled from behind her—Maddie had almost forgotten she was there—and from the way Godzilla’s mental warmth softened a little, she must’ve been on Maddie’s side. He held out for another few seconds before giving in.

The effect was immediate. He filled her head in a way that was different from Mothra, but brought her just as much happiness. Her actual body felt warmer just from having him present in her mental space.

Relief filled her. Some of it was hers, she knew, but based on the sheer strength of it, it was both of theirs as well. And how odd, yet comforting, Maddie found it, to have her emotions entangled like that. It was unlike anything she’d felt before, but it felt _right_.

“See?” she said, unable to resist taking the last few steps forward to press her hand to Godzilla’s snout. “I’m just fine. I’m more than fine. I swear, you never hurt me. You protected me, you _saved_ me.”

_Saved me too,_ she half-heard. Her stomach briefly flip-flopped as a falling sensation swept through her.

“We can call it even if you want,” Maddie offered.

His agreement warmed her. She smiled.

“I’m Maddie, by the way.” She glanced back at Mothra for a moment. “Never really had the chance to introduce myself before.”

Mothra raised her wings in greeting, and Godzilla snorted.

The words they used, while clearer than they’d been a few days ago, were still out of reach. But… _Ghidorah_ had spoken so clearly. Why couldn’t Maddie hear Mothra and Godzilla the same way?

Except, he’d shoved her into her head, into her special mental place, before she’d been able to understand him. As dreadful as it’d been, maybe that was why. Maybe she just wasn’t deep enough right now.

“Hang on, let me try something…” Maddie trailed off and closed her eyes. Her mindscape was too deep, and even just being in the in-between stage made it super hard to pay attention to the real world. Her surface level mental space was just fine for ordinary telekinesis stuff, but the Titan translator bit felt further down than that.

It sounded crazy and complicated even to her, and she desperately hoped she never actually had to explain any of this to someone else, because Maddie knew she’d make no sense. Regardless of how impossible it all sounded, she tried to reach that half-in, half-out state like when Mothra had first joined her in her mind. With more than one Titan present, it felt a little bit harder to keep the balance.

However, keeping one figurative foot a little more firmly in her mental space, no matter how difficult to maintain, was worth it to understand them better.

“Okay, that’ll definitely take practice,” she said, opening her eyes. It was kinda like trying to do one thing with her right hand and an entirely different thing with her left, at the same time. But even that wasn’t impossible. “I don’t think I can manage using my own words yet, but hopefully this will help with you guys.”

For the first time, instead of feelings translating themselves into some approximate meaning, she heard what they actually said.

**“Not worth it if it hurts you,”** came the deep, rumbly voice of Godzilla. There was a growly undertone, and it matched his appearance perfectly. It was a world of difference from Ghidorah and the way he’d sounded, all poison and malicious glee. The weight of him, pressing down against her, forcing himself where he wasn’t meant to go, was completely absent in her connection with Godzilla.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said, grinning as it really truly hit her. She could have actual conversations with them. “It just takes concentration.”

_“If that ever changes, you mustn’t continue doing it.”_ And that was Mothra, her voice soft and light. _“We have no wish to cause you harm.”_

Maddie nodded. “I promise to stop if that happens.” It felt nice, knowing they were concerned for her. She wrapped herself in the comfort of their combined presence, and nearly toppled over when her body tried to take that as its cue to go boneless.

She braced herself against Godzilla with a gasp. For the first time in _ages,_ she didn’t feel alert and hyperaware and full of dread. The total relaxation she hovered on the edge of was almost foreign. If it wasn’t her telekinesis plaguing her thoughts with worry, it was her mom’s plan, or the conundrum with sensing Mothra before she hatched, and—that was all gone now.

There was a feeling swirling in her chest that brought tears to her eyes.

It was hope, plain and simple. Hope that things would get better, hope that the worst was over, hope that, with these new, _wonderful_ connections, she wouldn’t be on her own anymore. The secret of her powers was still a secret where it mattered, but now there were people—well, Titans—who _knew_.

Maddie could have floated away in that moment, for all the weight that had fallen away from her.She pressed her forehead to Godzilla’s snout, overwhelmed with the realization.

Mothra’s concern washed over her, just as Godzilla shifted and said, **“You’re crying. Who do I need to bite?”**

She couldn't help but laugh. There was a brief, silent reprimand that passed from Mothra to him, though it was merely surface-level, concealing fierce agreement.

“No one, I just…” she trailed off and bit her trembling lip. “I feel safe,” she whispered, trying to share the exact feeling with them. “And I think it’s been longer than I thought since the last time I wasn’t scared or anxious or something.”

**“It’s too much,”** Godzilla agreed. **“Sleep. Let your body adjust.”**

The thought of going back had her unintentionally digging her fingers into his scales as her breath caught uncomfortably in her throat. Leaving them sounded like a cruelly insurmountable task.

_“Then don’t,”_ Mothra said, answering the unspoken. _“Rest here, little one. We will stay with you.”_

Maddie swallowed and forced herself to straighten up and step away from Godzilla. “I’d like that.” She reluctantly returned to the beach, following the open-armed welcome Mothra was projecting at her.

_“We can continue speaking when you wake up.”_

One of these days, Maddie promised herself as she plopped down into the sand to lean back against Mothra’s side, she would wake up without any pain—headache or otherwise—or exhaustion, or doomsday threats hanging over her head. At least the latter was taken care of. Hopefully.

It distantly occurred to her as her eyelids grew heavy that this was the first time in a few days that she simply fell asleep, rather than lost consciousness from straining herself with her powers. And oh, how fantastic it felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone explain to me how there's still at least two chapters of similar lengths to go, because I can't understand it. Where did all this _story_ come from???
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied, these last two chapters are shorter. It's time to tie up one of our loose ends. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

The sun had risen considerably by the time Maddie stirred awake. She felt much better already, even after just a small nap. It didn’t look like she had moved much in the past few hours—neither Titan had either, from what she could see.

Mothra made a soft noise when she realized Maddie had woken up. _“Better?”_ she asked.

“Yeah.” Maddie sat up and stretched her arms. “I don’t feel like having a total breakdown anymore.”

_“Good. I realized something, while you were resting. Or perhaps, I remembered something. You were present in my temple, were you not? When I hatched?”_

Maddie nodded and huffed. “Feels like forever ago. It all happened so quickly.”

_“Yes, it did. I will admit to being rather disoriented.”_

Remembering the containment field and alarms and flashing lights and ORCA call, it was really no wonder. “Human stupidity at its finest. And our constant need to be in control.”

Godzilla—whose eyes were still closed, making Maddie wonder if he was still sleeping—snorted in derisive agreement.

Mothra hummed. _“My sense of you… it was so faint. I was barely aware of it.”_

“Makes sense. All this,” she gestured between the three of them, “I didn’t know it was possible back then. I didn’t even know you guys could talk like this. I mean, San Francisco was the first time I was ever even close to a Titan, and it wasn’t until years later that I barely started to understand what happened back then. Ghidorah was the first one who was more than sensations and stuff.”

_“How did you know you had such abilities, if you had yet to encounter one of us?”_ Mothra asked.

“Oh! Well, you see, I think hearing you guys is just a side effect of what I’m actually capable of, which is pretty much just telekinesis. That’s how I slowed you down,” she said, nodding at Godzilla.

He blinked lazily back at her. **“Telekinesis?”**

“Yeah. It basically means I move things with my mind.”

Maddie felt their continued confusion, so she decided a demonstration was in order. Besides, other than in Boston, it felt like too long since she’d last used simple telekinesis—no mindscape, no mental barriers, no foreign emotions involved.

She got to her feet with a little groan, ignored the pins and needles in her legs, and returned to the ocean. Feeling both of their attentive gazes on her, Maddie stopped

The water lapped around her shins as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. Turning so she was perpendicular to the beach, with Godzilla to her left, Maddie gave a short, sharp jerk of her head toward the endless ocean, eyes focused on the shoreline.

After so many years of practice, telekinesis was a walk in the park compared to some of this Titan-related stuff. The gesture she used depended on what she was trying to accomplish. Longer, more drawn out maneuvers—like catching Godzilla—worked better when she used her hands. Quicker stunts—like changing the ORCA’s controls—only needed little head movements. And for ones that didn’t require much energy—like holding the watermelon up on its end—she usually just stared at her target.

So she commanded the sea with a sudden jolt, and the water rushed away from the beach, splashing past Godzilla, to collapse back in on itself in a stand-still wave, over and over. The pebbly sand, damp and dark, and large, algae-covered rocks were left visible all the way out to the start of Godzilla’s legs.

And her nose wasn’t even bleeding.

She turned her head the rest of the way to look at Godzilla from the corner of her eyes, admittedly rather smugly. He lifted his head to glance behind him and made a sort of growly-bark noise. His impressed surprise shot up her spine.

Maddie flicked her chin up, and the water rushed back into place.

“See?” she said. “Telekinesis.”

Godzilla laughed. **“No wonder ole Three-Heads was freaked. Even he can’t beat magic.”**

“It’s not _magic,_ Godzilla.”

**“Mm. Magic.”**

“No.”

**“What, then?”**

She opened her mouth, froze, and snapped it shut. He radiated smugness. Flicking her fingers at her side, Maddie sent a spray of water over his snout. “Just because I don’t know exactly what it is doesn’t mean it’s magic,” she said over his deep snuffle. “It’s—I have… powers.”

**“ _Magic_ powers.”**

Question of the day: could telekinesis be used to strangle a Titan? Only one way to find out.

• • • 

Everything happened so quickly after that. There were press conferences, there were body counts, there were relief efforts. The other newly-awakened Titans were carefully and warily watched. Godzilla and Mothra both left to round them all up and talk or something. Maddie supposed if _she’d_ been suddenly and forcefully woken up and ordered to level cities, she’d want an explanation too.

She and Dad went to Castle Bravo with their other friends. Everyone tiptoed around the topic of Emma Russell, who Maddie had only seen once since Boston.

Their brief meeting had felt like a goodbye, though the word itself was never truly said.

As much as Maddie didn’t appreciate being handled like a delicate glass sculpture, some part of her was grateful that everyone made it so easy to avoid the subject. The space to process everything—including the stuff no one else knew about—was exactly what she needed. Eventually, she’d have to talk it out with someone, probably Dad and Aunt Viv, if she had to guess.

But for now, she could finally _breathe_. Her headaches faded. The persistent body-wide pain dulled until she finally woke up without it. She began to practice her telekinesis again, and for the first time, she actually enjoyed it.

Having given her powers a purpose, if only for a day or two, made them seem less like a burden, a terrible secret, a curse. She’d done good things with them, and that made all the difference to her.

When Maddie began challenging herself, it wasn’t out of fear or caution. It was for fun.

Of course, not all was well. There was still something that needed to be done.

• • •

It was a week after she’d woken up post-Boston that she finally had the chance to put some real effort into rescuing Dr. Serizawa. Not wanting any human interruptions, and deciding that being close to her emotional-support Titans was a good idea, she had Mothra fly her out to the middle of nowhere one night, where Godzilla was floating on his back, waiting.

Mothra landed on his stomach and lowered herself so Maddie could slide off. Having come prepared, she jumped right into the ocean. With the two of them watching over her, she had no reason to fear anything going disastrously wrong.

She’d put a lot of thought into this moment. Her usual methods of descending into her mindscape wouldn’t be enough for what she needed tonight. Keeping the darkness to avoid distractions, Maddie had swapped out the usual static or white noise, anything to block out the sounds of daily life happening around her, with Mothra and Godzilla as anchors of sorts.

They wouldn’t be joining her in her mindscape, mostly because she wasn’t confident enough in herself to be able to deal with three separate minds all at once. Pulling Dr. Serizawa out of a nothing-space was intimidating enough. She didn’t need two Titans watching over her shoulders while she worked.

However, they would be standing by to help with anything, should she need it.

**“Good luck, Pup,”** Godzilla said.

_“Remember, we are here for you. You are not alone.”_

Sending them her wordless gratitude and relief, and a touch of her determination, Maddie moved to float on her back beside Godzilla. She let herself go limp as she took slow, deep breaths. And then, she closed her eyes.

It took a little longer than usual, but she’d expected that. Godzilla and Mothra’s life-signs, bonfire-sized multicolored flames, took shape off to her side. She took comfort in them before beginning to delve deeper.

The infinite-nothing formed around her. It’s odd, echoey silence took the place of the lapping ocean. The water’s coolness evened out into stagnant air that was neither warm nor cold. The weightlessness of floating was switched out for the glass-smooth sensation below her bare arms and legs.

When Maddie opened her eyes, the stars above her were gone.

She sat up to discover Dr. Serizawa already waiting for her, sitting on the not-there-floor across from where she’d appeared.

He smiled at her. “May I take it that all is well?”

“Yeah,” she said, crossing her legs in front of her. “We won, Dr. Serizawa. Ghidorah’s dead, and all the Titans have calmed down.”

“And Godzilla?”

“He’s just fine. He, uh,” Maddie chuckled. “He’s waiting for us, so assuming I manage to get you out of here, you’ll get to meet him. And Mothra, she’s there too.”

She could practically see the stars in his eyes. “That is wonderful news, and I look forward to seeing them both.” He reached over and patted her knee. “I have complete confidence in you, Maddie.”

Maddie blew out a breath. “Well, that makes one of us. Or, I guess, three. They both think I can do this.”

“But you do not?”

Shrugging, Maddie looked around. Blackness as far as the eye could see. It felt… off, a little. As if Dr. Serizawa’s presence was affecting her mindscape. Maybe it was. “I’ve never exactly done something like this before,” she freely admitted. “The ‘bringing you in here’ part or the ‘getting you out’ part. I’ve never even _told_ anyone that I could…” She waved her hand around at their nonexistent surroundings and slumped over. “Do this sort of stuff.”

He frowned and remained silent for a few long moments. “Perhaps you should leave me here, then.”

“What!” Maddie jerked upright. “Why would you even _suggest_ that?”

Dr. Serizawa leaned forward and earnestly said, “There is no logical way to explain my unexpected survival and return, Maddie. Though I doubt anyone would jump to a conclusion even close to the truth, it is entirely likely people will be much more willing to consider the impossible as possible. An accidental witness to your powers, in the past or future, could suddenly grow genuinely suspicious.”

“So you think it would be better to just stay here? That’s crazy! And, and the chance of someone catching me is _tiny,_ Dr. Serizawa. I mean, it’s always been something I’ve been worried about, but my paranoia isn’t _that_ bad.”

“I would be happy to keep your secret, Maddie,” he said. “But I would hate to put you in danger. If revealing myself to be alive poses a threat to you—”

“Nope, nuh-uh, this isn’t up for debate. No way, no how am I just leaving you here.” Maddie took a deep breath and evened a stern look at Dr. Serizawa. “We’ll figure something out, but letting you stay ‘dead’ isn’t an option.”

He sighed, as if she was the one being unreasonable. “As long as you are entirely sure, Maddie.”

“One-hundred percent sure, Dr. Serizawa,” she responded, and then, riding that spike of determined righteous anger at his suggestion, she sat up on her knees and grabbed his wrists.

Trying to mimic the way Godzilla had protectively wrapped himself around her in Boston, Maddie gathered her mental self up and imagined herself surrounding Dr. Serizawa. It was easier than she would have expected, and she heard him gasp right before she tried to pull at him.

It was like trying to move through sludge, thick and sticky as if refusing to let her go. Or like trying to shove a mountain, or swim with a boulder chained to her legs. She strained against the resistance, but Dr. Serizawa had become an immovable object.

Think it out, Maddie told herself. She’d accidentally pulled him into her mindscape, and now she was purposefully trying to get him out. But maybe she was going about this wrong. _How_ did she grab him and drag him in to join her? She hadn’t touched him, after all.

She _hadn’t touched him_.

And that meant she _had_ to have used her telekinesis, not some new mindscape power or something. So instead of trying to make her mindscape eject him, so to speak, Maddie tried to do the same thing as she’d done to get him stuck.

Instead of continuing to attempt to pull him up with her as she left her mindscape, Maddie retreated from her mindscape by herself, without waking up entirely, in order to replicate the original setup. Only now it was reversed. She stood on the real world side of the one-way mirror and stared into the upside-down vision of her mindscape. Dr. Serizawa was still kneeling there, head slightly bowed.

She sat right above him, looking down into his face.

Closing her eyes, Maddie let herself feel every ounce of her determination to save him, the despair over her fear of failing, her guilt for leaving Aunt Viv so sad over his death. She’d pulled him into her mindscape out of a desperation not to see him die, but if she left him there, he might as well be dead anyway.

She couldn’t let that happen. She _refused_.

Maddiesurvived San Francisco, she’d withstood the hurricane that was Ghidorah, she’d _won_ in Boston, she’d welcomed a pair of Titans into her head, and she’d gotten Dr. Serizawa into this mess and if it was the last thing she ever did, _she’d get him out of it!_

Her furious resolve slammed through her body like a vicious, violent living thing, latching its claws into the soft tissue of her soul and _reaching_ into the everything and the nothing with snapping teeth.

And then her ears popped and she was back in the real world, sucking in a mouthful of water. She opened her eyes as she resurfaced, coughing, and found she was no longer alone. Still in his baggy suit and coughing just like she was, Dr. Serizawa bobbed up and down in front of her, dazed and visibly confused.

Something rose up beneath them, lifting them up so they didn’t have to struggle to stay above the surface while they choked on the water in their lungs. Godzilla slowly moved his hand to his chest, where he deposited the both of them.

Maddie sent him a thumbs up and a wordless thanks as she got her breathing back under control. The beginnings of a headache vanished beneath Mothra’s soothing touch.

“So,” she said breathlessly as she sat back on her heels. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

Dr. Serizawa chuckled as he too finally stopped hacking. “It happened so quickly,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes were closed. “If you had not said otherwise, I would have guessed you’ve done that before.”

Which was weird, since she was pretty sure she’d spent a good few minutes uselessly pulling at him before anything actually worked. But then, she’d always known time was wonky in her mindscape.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“I am perfectly fine, Maddie. I will admit, however, that I had gotten used to the odd silence, and the… darkness.”

Her first trips to and from the mindscape were hazy memories at best, but sensitive senses sounded familiar. “Your ears are kinda buzzing right now, aren’t they? It’ll go away soon. Same with light sensitivity. I know it’s weird, that it’s pitch black in there but you can still see, sorta. And, uh. I know it might not feel great, Dr. Serizawa, but I really think you should open your eyes.”

He did, squinting at her as he tried to adjust. Of course, as the realization of who they were sitting on slowly sunk in, any discomfort seemed to vanish. He gazed over at Godzilla in complete and total awe.

Godzilla eyed him in return before snorting. **“The man from my temple. Stupid human. But brave. Glad he’s okay,”** he said.

“He’s glad you didn’t die in that big cave,” Maddie told Dr. Serizawa. “And he thinks you were brave.”

**“ _Stupid,_ but brave.”**

Maddie sent him a quick Look, trying to convey between that and her emotions something along the lines of _shut up, I’m not telling him that_.

Dr. Serizawa turned his awe onto her. “You can understand him?”

Tapping the side of her head, Maddie said, “I’m finding I can do a lot of crazy things. It’s… a long story, but with a little concentration, yeah, I can understand them both.”

Clearly startled, Dr. Serizawa twisted around and gasped at the sight of Mothra nearby. “Ah! My apologies, I did not see you.” He bowed his head a little.

Mothra returned the gesture. _“There is nothing to be sorry for. Indeed, I must thank you for saving my King, at risk to yourself.”_

“She said you don’t have to be sorry, and she’s really grateful that you were willing to risk yourself to help Godzilla.”

“I was glad to,” Dr. Serizawa said, looking back and forth between the two Titans, only to finally settle his gaze on Maddie. “You said it is a long story, but, if you are willing, I would very much like to hear it.”

Keeping her secrets was something Maddie had resigned herself to ages ago. The prospect of telling someone the whole story—the early, simple days; San Francisco and its aftermath; Mothra’s egg; Antarctica; all of it—was tantalizing. She knew Dr. Serizawa would be an excellent listener, and besides, she’d been meaning to give Godzilla and Mothra the full background of her powers.

“Y’know what, Dr. Serizawa?” she said, getting into a comfier position. Dr. Serizawa followed her lead, smiling encouragingly. “I think I’d really like that.”

• • •

In the end, they didn’t put much thought into how they’d reveal Dr. Serizawa to be alive, deciding instead to just kinda wing it.

Since Maddie couldn’t help but be a _little_ snarky about it, though, she popped into the doorway of the busy common area in Castle Bravo and said, loud enough to catch everyone’s attention, “I thought you guys said Dr. Serizawa died.”

Even the grief that passed over their faces wasn’t enough to make her falter.

“He did, Maddie,” her dad said lowly. “What—”

“But he’s _here,_ ” she interrupted him.

This being his cue, Dr. Serizawa, still in his radiation suit, rounded the corner behind her and stepped into view.

Somewhere in the abruptly silent room, a mug shattered, having slipped through slack fingers.

“Ah,” Dr. Serizawa said, looking around. Maddie fiercely bit her lip to keep from laughing. She’d never seen so many expressions of pure, unadulterated shock before. “I apologize,” he continued, “for causing anyone to worry.”

Maddie slid backward into the hallway out of self-preservation as Dr. Ilene was the first to break free from her stupor and shoot to her feet. The rest were quick to follow. Mob-like, the dozen or so people in the lounge rushed for him.

Leaning against the wall, Maddie tilted her head back and smiled absently at the ceiling, listening to the bombardment of questions. There was crying, too. Aunt Viv wasn’t present, which was probably for the best. She deserved to find out on her own.

“But _how?_ ” someone asked. “How did you survive?”

The question wasn’t a surprise. Poor Dr. Serizawa would probably be asked that a lot in the coming days. But she didn’t tense in anticipation of his answer, like she was half-expecting herself to.

He had promised to keep her secret until she was ready to tell it herself, if ever. And she trusted him to keep his word.

“I am not entirely certain. I suspect there was some measure of luck involved.”

And it was true _._ If she hadn’t been a silent, upside-down witness, he would’ve been caught in the blast. The thought sent shivers down her spine. _Luck_ didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Right as the bomb went off, everything went dark.”

Also true. Maddie’s mindscape was nothing _but_ dark, especially since she’d been snapped out of it so abruptly.

“I… floated, for a while, alone in the darkness.”

And she’d left him there. She’d been kinda preoccupied with preventing the entire world from falling apart, granted, but still. Her mindscape freaked her out even after years of exposure to it. How long had he sat, confused and alone, in an incomprehensible void?

No matter his reassurances, she’d probably feel guilty about that for a while longer.

“And I awoke in the ocean.”

Which meant no one could dredge up any witnesses. Still smiling, Maddie sighed. Though he’d left some of the details out—y’know, just the most important ones that actually explained the true _how_ of his survival—that was more or less what happened. And everyone knew the easiest story to stick to was the one that was true.

It was okay. It was all finally okay. Dr. Serizawa was fine. Her parents were both alive. Godzilla and Mothra were in her head.

And Maddie could finally breathe easy again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote the saving Serizawa scene like three times, and I'm still not sure I managed to explain it right. Sorry if it's confusing or anything! 
> 
> Just the epilogue now, guys. I can't believe this story is almost finished. It feels like I worked on it for so long (which, I guess I did). Love y'all, and thanks for sticking with me! 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, we have reached the end. Hope you guys enjoy it!

With Dr. Serizawa gone, her mindscape felt normal again. It settled, once again empty. Or at least, it would’ve, if it weren’t for a couple of Titans.

Maddie’s mindscape wasn’t dark anymore. It wasn’t a blank nothingness. The thin layer of water that had first appeared during her desperate attempt to escape Ghidorah had returned and deepened. Walking through it felt like walking through a sun-warmed river, with smooth stones beneath her feet and a crisp freshness in the air. Though there was no discernible light source, soft bluesuffused the water, illuminating the ripples around the flowing surface.

It was always the perfect temperature. Cool enough to soothe, warm enough to be welcoming. Here and there, large rocks perfect for sitting on poked out of the shallows, covered in deep green moss.

Above, shining down on everything in the nothingness, were the Northern Lights, as bright and reassuring as Godzilla’s atomic breath was in battle. The colors were rich and pure, ever-shifting blues and greens and purples and reds. When she was distressed, beyond what the spring water could help, the lights danced down to surround her, warm and almost solid.

Beyond them, sometimes she thought she could see stars. Whether they were there because of Godzilla, she didn’t know. When she thought of the legend Dr. Ilene had told her about, that of Ghidorah’s origins, she resolved never to ask.

There was a scar, too. Left by Ghidorah himself, it was the only mark Maddie bore that came from him. Her physical body had escaped untouched, but in her mindscape, a jagged line cut through the black—always the same distance from her, no matter how much she walked towards or away from it—and emanated a sickly yellow light.

She stared at it sometimes, knees pulled up to her chin as she perched on one of the boulders, and wondered what would happen, if anything, if she ever managed to touch it.

• • •

She laid back in the layer of water in her mindscape and closed her eyes as it rippled against her. Taking in a shallow breath, Maddie pushed herself under. It wasn’t too deep here, just enough for her to be able to fully submerge herself.

Opening her eyes, she blankly stared upward, only half-noticing the way the light danced around her. Above her, the Northern Lights wavered wildly, distorted by the water’s surface.

A trail of bubbles escaped her mouth. Part of Maddie was tempted to see if drowning in her mindscape was possible.

The immediate twin flares of concern that nudged against her at the thought convinced her to sit up. Wiping her eyes, Maddie pulled her legs up to her chest. “I wouldn’t _actually_ have drowned,” she told her Titan guardians. “I’d have sat up if I choked.”

She thought about it for a second before smiling slightly. “I should see if I can push the water away from my mouth. Like a little bubble around my head. That’d be cool.”

If they hadn’t already been tipped off, the complete lack of genuine enthusiasm in her voice definitely would’ve told Godzilla and Mothra something was wrong.

A weight settled across her shoulders, though she’d see nothing at her back if she bothered to look. Godzilla was a master at these makeshift hugs.

_“Has something happened?”_ Mothra asked, her voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

Maddie bit her lip, hesitated, then nodded. Godzilla’s non-physical hug spread to encompass more of her. She let her gratitude flow freely between them.

“They just… they finished dealing with my mom today.” Over a month after Boston, and they’d finally gone through every scrap of evidence, every file, every video, every testimony. Maddie had been questioned to hell and back, but the reality was, she couldn’t tell them much.

It’d been a while since she was so thoroughly reminded that being twelve years old made her a kid. Having the power to move things with your mind messed with your perception of yourself, apparently. A therapist or psychologist or whoever would probably have a field day with that.

“Guess it didn’t really feel real until now,” she added. “The whole… y’know. Getting in trouble thing. It all just took so long that it felt like it’d never really be over, so now that it is…” She shrugged. “I don’t know how to feel. Like, I’m not surprised or anything. Dad told me what to expect.”

**“It’s still a lot,”** Godzilla rumbled, correctly summing up the swirling storm of thoughts in her head.

She nodded. Mothra crooned wordlessly, a sound of comfort and support. Maddie’s shoulders unconsciously relaxed a bit.

Reaching out to trail her fingers through the water, she took a deep breath. “I don’t know—” she swallowed the _if_ that perched on the tip of her tongue— “when I’ll get to see her again.”

If either of them caught her near-slip, they kindly didn’t mention it.

_“Will you be allowed to write to her?”_ Mothra asked. _“Do people still do that?”_

“Yeah, we do,” Maddie laughed. It wasn’t a bad idea, though. “I’ll ask my dad if I can send her letters or emails. Thanks, Mothra.”

_“Of course, my dear.”_

Godzilla grunted suddenly, and a sense of anticipation and mischief brushed through her. **“Can you get away in two days? For a trip?”**

“Uh. Yeah, I think? Where to?”

He hummed. **“It’s a surprise, Pup. You’ll have to be patient.”**

• • •

Maddie had nightmares just like everyone else. They were faint, blurry things that were forgotten by the time she had sat down to have breakfast. On occasion, the upset feelings they caused lingered even after the dream events that inspired them had been forgotten.

But sometimes, she heard Ghidorah’s voice. In those dreams, she stood on the harsh landscape of Antarctica, surrounded by whipping snow and suffocating fog. Trapped in the center of the blizzard, ice pelted against her if she dared attempt to leave her perfect circle of stillness. He was there, beyond the whirling wall, circling around her. Lightning flashed in the distance, sometimes illuminating his silhouette.

And his voice. It always sounded like it was coming from right behind her, no matter how much she turned to try and keep him in her sights.

**_“Hello again,”_** he whispered, all fangs and poison. It was a tiny step up from the first time she’d had this dream and he’d snarled out, **_“Look what we have here,”_** before she woke up with a painful jerk like she’d received a shock to her system.

But it was just a dream. Dreams couldn’t hurt her. Just a dream.

_(It wasn’t like the mind was a powerful place. A dangerous place. It wasn’t like Maddie’s mind in particular couldn’t let others in.)_

“You’re not real,” she said, wanting more than anything to believe it. “This is just a nightmare. You’re gone.”

**_“Gone but not forgotten,”_** he hissed in her ear. **_“We_** ** _linger_** ** _.”_**

“You’re dead,” Maddie reminded him. “You even just admitted it yourself.”

He chuckled, rasping and sharp and amused, sending shivers down her spine. **_“What a funny little morsel. Being_** ** _gone_** ** _is not the same as being_** ** _dead_** ** _. That which has_** ** _gone_** ** _may_** ** _come back_** ** _.”_**

A prickly sensation erupted up and down her arms and against her back and stomach, as if his jaws had bracketed her in and were slowly closing around her. Maddie rubbed her arms, but the feeling didn’t go away.

“Liar,” she said.

A flash of lighting off to her side revealed his slinking form, tails raised and lashing. She turned to follow him.

**_“There is no lying here. You know this. And we know how little you believe yourself.”_ **

He struck at her then, blindingly fast, lunging out of the snow and fog with his jaws cracked open wide. She saw the slit of his tongue and the darkness of his throat, but before he could make a snack out of her, she was opening her eyes in bed, the ghost of horribly chittering laughter following her into the real world.

_(The beginnings of bruises lined her arms from shoulder to wrist in a near perfect line. But Ghidorah was dead and those were just dreams. Nightmares. Maddie didn’t go back to sleep that night.)_

• • •

Maddie stood in Godzilla’s palm and waved at Rodan. As far as surprises went, this was pretty good, she had to admit.

His voice was a little raspy and nowhere near as deep as Godzilla’s. Flying with him was a whole different experience than flying with Mothra. Jumping from one Titan to the other mid-flight was definitely one of the coolest experiences she’d ever have.

Rodan crowed wildly when they told him about her brief face-off with Ghidorah. He sided with Godzilla for the on-going debate about whether her powers were magic or not, which turned into a girls versus boys battle of splashing on the deserted beach they’d settled on.

Of course, Maddie was the smallest by an intimidating margin, but she was also the only one who could redirect water midair. She couldn’t imagine there was a better confidence-booster than having a pair of Titans cry to you for mercy—even playfully.

It wasn’t until later, long after they’d all gone their separate ways in the dark of the night, that Maddie found one of the best parts about meeting Rodan.

There was a tree, now, in her mindscape. It was a massive weeping willow, as big around as a redwood and half as tall. Its fronds were a deep red and lazily danced in a breeze that didn’t exist. Bright magma shifted beneath the cracks in the twisting obsidian trunk.

Maddie loved it. It also made her wonder what effects the other Titans might have on her mindscape, should she ever meet them.

Frankly, she couldn’t wait to find out.

• • • 

Maddie kept track of the scariest things that ever happened to her. For a long time, the list stayed the same. Her mindscape was on it. Blowing up the watermelon was on it. San Francisco was on it.

Her mother’s plan changed all that. She received confirmation that she could have Titans in her head. She faced Ghidorah in Antarctica. She saw the heart of a nuke. She pulled someone into her mindscape. She faced Ghidorah again in Boston. She fell off a building.

Of her top-five scariest things, two through five were revised every few hours for those long, headache-filled days.

_(There may or may not be some twisted remnant of a dead alien Titan in her head. That was pretty scary on its own. His hissed out claims of_ **_not_ ** _being dead were scarier.)_

The number one spot never faltered, though. It hadn’t in years. It hadn’t since the one and only time she tried to see if there was anything deeper than her mindscape.

Maddie was her own number one scariest thing. It was the Thing that lurked within her, all darkness and shadows and teeth. The Thing she could almost reach out and touch. The Thing that had tried to reach back.

And it was her, and it was in her, and it must never ever escape her.

• • • 

“I saw something, just for a moment,” Dr. Serizawa told her one day, while they were sitting side by side on the top of Castle Bravo, their legs dangling over the edge. “When I left your mindscape.”

Maddie froze for a too-long second. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He didn’t look afraid. “Yeah?” she made herself ask. “What was it?”

He hummed pleasantly, staring out at the sunset across the rolling ocean. He didn’t answer for a long time. “A phoenix,” he finally said. “It wrapped its wings around me.”

The wind whistled. The water splashed. The world turned.

“Oh,” Maddie softly said.

He smiled slightly and nodded. “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Are you sure you want to do this, Maddie?”

“Yeah,” she whispered as the door to the platform opened behind them. “I’m sure. Thanks for having my back.” Footsteps approached.

“It’s my pleasure.” Dr. Serizawa stood and moved a little ways down the railing, looking down at the familiar spines drifting aimlessly around below them.

“What’d you want to talk about, kiddo?” her dad asked as he sat down beside her.

It’d taken weeks for her to make this decision, having flip-flopped over it for ages. But no matter how nervous she was, Maddie didn’t want to keep this secret from her dad any longer.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “This,” she said quietly, holding her hand out, with her phone on her palm. It slowly raised into the air and lazily spun in place.

Her dad gasped, eyes wide. Sending a startled glance at her, he reached out and waved his hand above and below the hovering phone. “You’re doing that?” he finally asked.

Maddie nodded, holding her breath.

She watched the play of emotions over her father’s face. The shock and surprise. The incredulity and disbelief. The forceful calm, the deep breath, the grasp for patience. But through it all, he never looked fearful or disgusted. “How?” he asked. He sounded genuinely curious. He sounded amazed. He sounded like he was truly ready listen.

“Well,” she said, setting her phone down. In the corner of her eye, she saw Dr. Serizawa smile. Below, Godzilla’s spines drew closer to the base, and her mind was warm and full of love. “It started when I was four.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am contemplating a sequel, which might involve Jonah having some unfortunate realizations, Mark going missing on Skull Island, and Maddie making a deal with the devil. We'll see, I suppose. ;) 
> 
> Anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed this! I had a blast writing it, and it feels good to have another completed chapter story. You guys are the best!
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


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